This Crazy Journey
by DesiresPie
Summary: Corina was an ordinary high schooler until a book randomly dragged her to a place called Konan. Now she's a confused, freaked-out ordinary high schooler... who might just have the fate of an empire resting in her questionably capable hands.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: Okay, I've never done this before, so I'll try to make it relatively short. Hi. I'm Pie. This _is_**** my first fanfic (actually, the first time I've written anything for a reason other than school). I started writing bits and pieces of _TCJ_**** just for fun about six months ago, and decided that I might as well try to make it a complete story and put it online. And I _am_**** trying as hard as I can to make it Mary-Sue-free. So... uh... yeah. Enjoy.**

**Oh snap! I almost forgot the disclaimer! **

**I do not own Fushigi Yuugi or any recognisable characters, places, etc. Corina, Leslie, Harriet, and Kamila are mine, possibly except for their names, which I squished together from various random name generators. And I also don't own Mad Libs.**

* * *

This Crazy Journey: Chapter 1

"Squishy!" Leslie Beygli's shriek was probably audible at least halfway across the campus as she charged towards a slightly overweight girl with short, dark brown hair, who whirled to face the source of the noise, green-grey eyes widening.

Corina Miller barely had time to let out a quick squeak and begin to brace herself for impact before the petite blonde crashed into her, glomping the other sophomore. Due to an extreme inability to balance, Cori staggered and almost fell over, causing a passing freshman to leap nervously out of their way.

"Ow! Bagel! _My_ bubble!" the taller girl said in an irritated tone, jerking out of her friend's grip. "Don't make me frying-pan you!" she added slightly more lightheartedly as she pulled the cooking utensil out of the plastic bag that was slung over her arm and waved it in a threatening manner. Apparently props brought for stupid French projects could be good for _something_.

Leslie, known as Bagel to her close friends, pouted playfully at her friend "Awww, Squishy. It was just a little tackle."

Cori (aka. Squishy) attempted to glare at the shorter girl; a feat that was made rather difficult by Les's comically exaggerated expression. "You still invadified my bubblishness." She pointed out in her own mutilated version of English, her expression matching the other girl's as they began to walk toward the front of the school, where they were supposed to meet the other two members of their group of close friends.

"Well you don't have to be such a muffinhead about it." Leslie retorted.

"_I'm_ a muffinhead? Well, you're a… " She paused, trying to think of an appropriately random and meaningless 'insult'. "Pickle-ear!"

"Raspberry nose!" Leslie responded, sticking her tongue out.

"Bagel! Squishy!" Their exchange of questionable insults interrupted, the brunette and the blonde both turned to see a slender girl with an olive complexion waving her arms overenthusiastically above her head as she jogged towards the other two, the French braid that she almost always used to keep her black hair under control flopping behind her.

"Meewa!" the pair squealed, also wildly flailing their arms. "You'd better not invadify my bubble!" Cori added as the Greek-looking girl stopped next to her and Les.

Kamila Whitley, otherwise known as Meewa, put a hand to her chest, pretending to be shocked "How could you think that I, your cousin, would ever do such a terrible thing as invading your bubble! You wound me so deeply!" she declared mock-dramatically in her faintly accented voice as she allowed Leslie to half-tackle her.

"See, Meewa doesn't mind if I invade _her_ bubble." She shorter girl said, sticking her tongue out at Cori as she ignored Kami's slightly muffled "Ow. Need air. Lungs squashed."

Cori sniffed, raising her chin slightly "Well, I'm just… bubble-sensitive. That's it. And I think you're stranglificating Meewa."

"But she's so huggable!" Les protested, letting go of her friend anyways.

"Thanks, Squishy." Kami panted, trying to regain her breath.

Her cousin shrugged. "No problem."

"So, who else thinks that this year's annual start-of-Spring-break sleepover is gonna be incredible?" Leslie asked, grinning excitedly. Having sleepovers at the start of every break had been a tradition for the four ever since they were old enough to actually spend a night away from home.

"Me, even though I hafta leave kinda early-ish so I can ride Tango before I show Snicky, but that's okay 'cuz it's gonna be an uber-fun show!" Cori practically squealed, bouncing excitedly. They had long since grown used to the fact that the brunette's schedule was mostly filled with school, homework, riding horses, and even occasionally getting some sleep, which didn't leave much room for any version of a social life.

"I _still_ can't believe that your parents are letting us invade the house while they're away!" Kami said.

"Yeah, it's gonna be spifftastic! Now we just need Fluzzy to show up so we can _go_." Cori added, slightly impatiently. She wasn't a particularly patient person to begin with, and the fact that the weather was unusually cold for California at the beginning of April wasn't helping, especially since she was wearing sequined flip-flops due to an inability to find any other matching pairs of footwear other than extremely worn riding boots in her miniature disaster zone of a room.

"What's taking her so friggin' long?" Les wondered, just as impatient as her plump friend.

"Maybe she got eated by a seagull." Cori suggested sarcastically. "Those things _are_ viciousful."

"They're _terrifying_!" Kami agreed. The slim girl had been absolutely terrified of birds of all varieties ever since an incident involving a particularly protective hen at a petting zoo when she was about four, which had literally scarred her for life. The small white peck marks on her right hand could testify to that.

"Yeah, they are! I had one totally dive-bombify me when I walking here from English. It was a hecka weirdful seagull, too. It did this bizarre shriek-thing, and I coulda sworn it was all red and sparklyful for a couple seconds." The encounter with that bird had been one of the weirdest things that had ever happened to Cori on the campus. She had just walked out of her classroom when she had suddenly heard wingbeats and some bird-like cry. Being naturally jumpy, she had leapt about a foot in the air and whirled to see a mass of shining crimson feathers apparently disappear into thin air.

"A red, _sparkly_ seagull?" Leslie raised an eyebrow in disbelief. "I _told_ you all those genius-classes you take would screw up your brain." She teased, shaking her head slowly.

"Hey, guys." A rather glum voice said from behind Kami, who was nervously scanning the cloudy sky for any sign of mutant sparkly seagulls.

"Fluzzy!" the resulting squeal was close to deafening as the three gathered around the new arrival, a pretty girl with wavy, light brown hair that was highlighted with streaks of blond. "We thought you'd been eaten by a seagull!" Then, noticing that Harriet Alford (or Fluzzy)'s usually flawless makeup was smeared and that there were tears in her blue eyes, the other three immediately knew that something was wrong.

Immediately, both Kamila and Leslie put an arm around Harri's shoulders. Cori moved in closer, feeling as awkward as she usually did in emotional situations. Touchy-feely here-let-me-comfort-you stuff just wasn't her thing, even with her friends that she'd known since mommy-and-me daycare classes (well, except for Kami, who had moved from England when she was eight. But she had spending summers in America for as long as anybody could remember, so that still counted as knowing her forever, at least in Cori's opinion).

"What's up?" Kami asked, her tone instantly sympathetic.

"Did _this_ boyfriend break up with you, too?" Leslie added. Harri nodded sadly, bursting into tears again in the middle of the group hug as Kami and Les comforted her.

"Whoa, hold on a sec. So ape-man broke up with you, right?" Cori asked from her slightly awkward position outside the circle of comforting-ness, eyebrows arched, trying to logically think through her friend's problem. At her friend's nod, the brunette continued "And you're all depressed-ful about this… why?"

The blue-eyed girl opened her mouth to begin a tearful explanation, but Cori interrupted her. "Fluzzy, the guy's a friggin' jerk with, like, an ittle bitty peanut-ish thing for a brain. I dunno _why_ you decided to date 'im in the first place, but he's _really_ not worth you going all emoishful on us, especially right before an uber-awesomeful party." She spoke with a blunt, slightly exasperated honesty that was born from a rather intense dislike of drama and the fact that, even after countless relationships that had all had no depth to them and had never lasted for more than three weeks (the current record stood at 19 days), Harri still went all mopey whenever her latest jerkwad guy had broken up with her.

"But he's so hot!" Harriet protested, her usual smile making a rapid comeback.

Corina snorted. "Him? Calling that guy ape-man is, like, an insult to monkeys or somethin'!" she said, feigning disgust, the playful, non-serious mood that always seemed to surround the four when they were together beginning to return.

"He's not _that_ bad-looking." Leslie said thoughtfully.

Harriet backed her up eagerly, her smeared makeup now the only sign of her previous sadness "Yeah! He has _great_ muscles!"

Cori rolled her eyes. "And that _really_ makes up for the fact that he looks like a friggin' mutated gorilla. Oh, and that him and his friends probably have the collective IQ of a mentally handicapped squirrel." "Well, we can't all be freakazoid brainiacs like you and Meewa!" Came the falsely offended response.

"Yeah, but it takes a ginormous amount of idiotness to fail the friggin' exit exam! That thing was pathetic!"

The sounds of their amiable bickering faded from the school grounds as the four best friends began the short walk to Leslie's house, not noticing the exotic scarlet bird that watched them intently from his perch on a nearby tree.

* * *

"Okay, we need a plural noun!" Harriet yelled over the loud music and general sounds of spazziness in Leslie's living room. Her request was met by a renewed frenzy of yelling from her friends, who, having recently rediscovered the joys of Mad Libs, were clustered around her on the carpet, along with large bowls of white cheddar cheez-its and chocolate. Since the clearest word she had heard was Cori's suggestion of "Muffins!", she wrote that down.

"Okay, muffins it is! Now a place!"

Leslie promptly yelled "An outhouse!", which Harri wrote down in the midst of general laughter. Things continued in this rather insane manner until Harri had a completed (and mildly ridiculous) Mad lib, which she passed to Kami to read, since she and Les were the only ones who could actually get through a whole paragraph without completely cracking up. Plus, Kamila's accent just made the entire thing sound _so_ much more amusing.

After the required over-dramatic clearing of her throat, she began to read " In fair an outhouse, -- "

"Does that even make sense?" Leslie interrupted, laughing.

Kami shrugged. "Fine. I'll fix it. In _a fair _outhouse, where we lay our scene, two muffins, both alike in dignity, from ancient chili dog break to new mutiny, where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. From forth the fatal loins of these two foes, a pair of star-cross`d shag carpets take their life; whose misadventured piteous overthrows do with their frying pan bury their parents` strife. The fearful passage of their spiffy love, and the continuance of their parents` rage, which, but their children's end, nought could explode, Is now the 2.689 bazillion hours` traffic of our stage; That which if you with psycadelic little toe attend, what here shall trip, our toil shall strive to mend." She finished her solemn recitation with a dramatic bow, which seemed to be the cue for everybody in the room to lose whatever composure they had and practically fall over laughing.

"Ha! Now we know why the Montegues and Capulets, like, hated each other's guts! They had a they had an uber-ginormous food fight-ish thing and threw, like, rotten chili dogs and shiz at each other!" Cori declared triumphantly through her laughter, making everybody go into further hysterics.

"Now I'm picturing Romeo and Juliet with frying pans being all like 'Quit hating each other or we'll frying-pan you!' " Kami giggled.

Once everybody had recovered enough to pretty much be able to talk again, Harri randomly yelled out "Who wants to sled down the stairs?!"

"Me!" Kami yelled, just as hyperly, closely followed by Cori's cry of "Heck yes!" and Les's "I'll get sleds!"

However, their plan was interrupted by the sound of the doorbell ringing. Actually, it was a rather faint sound thanks to the fact that the Numa Numa Song was currently blasting on the speakers.

"Aaaaaaaack! Somebody's coming to molest us!" Harri shrieked arbitrarily, beginning to run around in circles while somehow managing to not collide with furniture or trip over a bowl of snacks.

" 'There's a mole nesting in us?' what the fudge does that mean?" Cori paused on her way to the staircase, mishearing what her friend had said.

"Guys!" Leslie shouted over the noise. "Calm down! It's just somebody with another big box of books for my mom." Leslie's mother worked to translate documents for various museums and universities, so she often recieved shipments of ancient books and scrolls, sometimes at rather odd times of day.

"Ohhhh." The other three chorused, then, still speaking in synchrony, added, "I'll get it!", starting a stampede that ended in the door being yanked open by all four sugar-high girls at once.

"Hi!" they yelled at the UPS delivery guy, who fumbled to hand them the package and get out of there as quickly as he could, eager to get away from the crazy teens. As soon as the box was inside the house, the hyper group brought it to the dining room, where they set it down on the table next to their backpacks.

Leslie eyed the box distastefully. "Great. Now I have to sort these things before my parents get home tomorrow." She sighed. "There goes our party."

"We'll help!" Harriet volunteered enthusiastically, pausing in the middle of twirling one of her highlighted curls around her perfectly manicured finger.

"Thanks, but they're all in random languages and shit."

"Hey! I gots a plan-ish thing!" Cori, who had been absentmindedly staring off into space, declared. A mischievous grin spread across her face as she began to bounce in place, looking like a child who had just thought of a particularly good game. "We could use Bagel's incomplete translatifying skillage to do Mad Lib-ish things with these!"

"Huh?"

"What?"

"How?" Noticing that her statement was met by three practically matching blank looks, the plump girl rolled her eyes.

"Well, y'all know how Bagel can only, like, _kinda_ translatify these booky-scrolly-thingies?" She began to explain quickly, gesturing to the box of manuscripts in front of her. The other three nodded. "So we can just, like, randomly grab a book-y thing, like…" she carefully picked up a small, plain-looking book bound in red leather, selecting it at random (and because it seemed to be the least delicate) "this one, open it to a random page, and—"

_ POOF!_

All four girls shrieked in surprise as a blinding red light from the book enveloped Corina, who barely had time to desperately grab on to the nearest semi-solid object before she disappeared into the glow.

* * *

**Author's Note: Yay! My first chapter of my first fanfic! Feel free to review and tell me what you think. Just please don't be _too_ harsh. I'm not particularly confident yet. ^.^;**

**Thanks for reading!**

**Pie**


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's note: Yay! Second chapter time! It's about 1 in the morning here, so sorry about any lack of coherency in the authors note. Actually I don't have much to say about this chapter, other than that things should get a little more interesting now. And that it contains some extremely mild swearing.**

**Disclaimer: Nope. Still don't own Fushigi Yuugi. The OC(s) are mine though. **

* * *

This Crazy Journey: Chapter 2

A flash of red light briefly illuminated an empty street, depositing a dazed-looking girl who was clutching her backpack to her chest as tightly as she could.

"Ow. Bagel, your floor is friggin' uncomfortable!" Corina complained loudly, wondering what had been up with that book and why Bagel's carpeted floor suddenly felt more like stone than nice, soft carpet. As she blinked the spots from her eyes, she was sure she was imagining things.

"What the frickin' flying fudgemuffins!?" she yelled as she leapt to her feet, staring at the cobblestone-esque street and the buildings that looked like they were out of either _Mulan_ or _Kung Fu Panda_ (except not all animated-looking, obviously), her pulse suddenly racing. "Bagel? Meewa? Fluzzy?" she squeaked, looking around for her friends with wide, disbelieving eyes.

Seeing nobody in the empty street, she let out a noise that was somewhere between a whimper and a groan. "I'm so screwed. Where the frick am I? This has_ got_ to be some sort of really weird dream. I mean, I got kidnapped by a random _book! _That _definitely_ makes this a dream!"She stood there, frozen next to her backpack as she talked to herself, trying to convince herself that there was no reason to go into a mental breakdown. Not yet, anyways.

"Okay Cori, this a dream. Got it? Yep. Got it." She nodded resolutely, picking up her backpack and putting it on with a grunt of effort (it was unusually heavy, since it contained all the random crud that she had brought for her sleepover, along with a textbook and a couple of binders), trying to ignore her quivering knees and the solid… real-ness of the place she had found herself in.

"Now whaddo I do 'till I wake up?" She muttered. "And why the heck is my backpack poking me?" Removing the offending bag, she smiled slightly as she saw a handle sticking out of the top.

"Sweet! I still have that frying pan from the stupid project! Score! So now I'm all set in the rare event that somebody actually decides to attack me in this weird dream-thingy." She had to give a mental snort to the idea that anybody would want to attack her. It wasn't like she had any valuables in her insanely obese backpack, and what guy would _want_ to rape an overweight girl with not-particularly-clear skin and a flatter-than-average chest, so she was pretty much—

"Hey, boss! Lookit what we found!" – safe. Oh, _crap_. She was about to finish the sentence when the loud, drunk sounding voice rang out from further down the narrow street.

"Aw, _hell_ no. This can _not_ be happening" Cori groaned. Trying to ignore the sick, nervous feeling in her stomach, she tightened her grip on the cooking utensil in her shaking hand and stared down the street at two greasy-looking guys who were staring back at her with a predatory glint in their eyes. _Way to jinx it, brilliant one!_

"She's an exotic 'un for sure! How much sake do ya think we'll git off her clothes alone?" At the voice from the other end of the street, Cori started to feel like she wanted to puke. _You're dreaming._ She reminded herself. _It's just a dream, and soon you'll wake up and be at Bagel's place and not surrounded by creeps and it'll all be wonderful and happy and there'll be pretty sparkly ponies and lots of chocolate and cheez-its and no freaky rapist-peeps who think jeans and a t-shirt look expensive and- _Suddenly, she realized that the air around her was smelling increasingly strongly of a disgusting mix of alcohol and unwashed male B.O. Snapping back to… well… not quite reality, but something close to that, she realized that there were now about four thugs surrounding her. She could see their strange, shredded clothes, the layer of grime on their skin, their greasy hair. These guys were even more disgusting than some of Fluzzy's boyfriends! Even worse, they were only about ten feet away.

_ Crap! Not good! Not good at all! And since when am I exotic? I have friggin' _freckles_, for crying out loud!_

"D-don't come any closer!" The frightened girl's attempt to sound confident and threatening came out as a rather pathetic squeak. The men (well, a couple of them might've still been in their teens) guffawed.

"Aw, girlie, don't be like that. We just wanna have a li'l fun." One of the men said in a tone that was the opposite of comforting as the four continued to advance. Cori held her frying pan in a quivering, white-knuckled grasp, trying to stabilize her jello-like knees.

"Yeah. If yer good, we won't even make it hurt _too_ much."

_ Uh… Can I wake up, like, _now_? Please?_ Cori begged, hoping that her trembling legs didn't just collapse. That would be _seriously_ bad. Then, she felt a hand on her shoulder. She yelped and whirled, swinging the cooking utensil in her hands. Much to her shock, it made a satisfying 'Thud' as it connected firmly with the side of her attacker's head. Her extreme surprise only intensified when the man fell over, unconscious.

_ Holy snap! Did I do that? Wow! I actually frying-panned somebody! That's so awesome, even if this is a dream! I can't wait to tell Meewa, Bagel, and Fluzzy! _she thought triumphantly, starting to do a victory dance in the middle of the street. Maybe this wasn't actually such an awful dream. After all, how often does one get to dream about whacking people with a frying pan in the middle of ancient China (or wherever the heck this place was)? Then, before Corina had even gotten in three seconds of celebration, the three thugs that were still conscious leapt for the girl.

"Frick!" she yelped, flailing her "weapon" enthusiastically, still feeling optimistic from her first accidental success. She was bound to hit _something_, right? Surely enough, one thug doubled over with a groan. However, the other two were slowly overwhelming her, driving her back towards a wall. She flinched and yelped as a fist clipped the side of her face, desperately trying to bring her frying pan up to defend herself while ignoring the numbness that was spreading from the point of contact.

_ Crapcrapcrap! Okay, dream not fun any more, 'cuz I am so fricking screwed! No, I'm not just screwed, I'm dead! Shit! I wish I could just, like distractify… Oh, heck yes! Plan-ish-ness!_

Suddenly thinking of a slightly desperate plan, Cori forced herself to freeze, pretending to stare at a point further down the street with wide, frightened eyes. "Holy shit! What _is_ that thing?!"

"What?" The guys turned around "Where?"

Seizing the opportunity that she had created, Cori turned and sprinted down the street, not even bothering to think about where she was going or the fact that her flip-flops were somehow miraculously staying on her feet. All that mattered now was getting away from the guys behind her. Hearing their seriously pissed-sounding yells, Cori pushed herself to run even faster, a rather incongruous thought popping into her brain. _Wow! I guess they just don't give us enough motivation in P.E.!_

Then, suddenly, there was what could only be described as a _wall_ of people in front of her. ""Scuse me! Pardon me! Sorry! Look out!" she called as she plowed through the crowd, still too worried about the possibility of potential rapists chasing her to bother slowing down, even as she hit something that felt like metal. Then, true to her usual lack of grace, the girl tripped over… something. She wasn't really sure what, but it caused her to tumble across the dusty street with a startled yelp. As soon as she stopped rolling, she leapt to her feet and—

_ Bonk!_

"Frack! Ow!" The already dusty, disheveled girl yelped as her head collided with something solid above her. _What the fudge was that?_

Startled into actually looking at what was around her, Cori's eyes widened and shoulders slumped as she stared at the ring of seriously pissed looking people in ornate armor who were all pointing spears in her direction. But, strangely enough, they seemed to be keeping their distance. The reason for the guards' reluctance to come nearer became slightly less mysterious when Cori noticed that there were eight (rather nervous-looking) muscular men supporting whatever she had just whacked her head on. She managed to stop panting for long enough to let out a nervous whimper.

_ Oh,_ snap_! Am I under one of those platform-thingies that important peeps used to be carried on? Frick, what're those called again? I know it! It starts with a P… it's definitely not a penguin… podium isn't quite right, either. Come, on, brain! Not a pelican, that's also a bird…_

"Your Majesty, the strangely dressed young woman is under your palanquin." While Cori had been trying to think of the name of the platform-thing, one of the guards (who seemed to be wearing even fancier armor than the rest of them) had stepped forward.

"Palanquin! That's the word! Thanks, Mr. Pissed-Looking Guard-Dude!" Almost everybody in the general vicinity stared at the girl under the palanquin, surprised by her sudden, still extremely breathless, outburst. Mr. Pissed-Looking Guard-Dude's legs (the only part of him Cori could actually see) were now shaking with rage.

"Is this woman the cause of the commotion?" Cori flinched in surprise as the calm, regal-sounding voice came from above her head. She'd forgotten that there was actually somebody up there!

"Yes, Your Majesty. She tried to attack your palanquin! I sugges—"

"Hey! I wasn't trying to attack anything!" Cori protested without thinking, slowly regaining the ability to breathe without wheezing. "I was just—" Cori stopped talking with a squeak as Mr. Pissed-Looking Guard-Dude jabbed the sharp end of his spear in her direction, looking like he was about to go into some form of apoplectic shock.

"Stop. We would like to hear her explanation. Could you come where We can see you?"

"Me?" Cori asked, surprised that everybody wasn't just talking about her like she wasn't sitting right next to (or under) them. "B-but it's safer under here." She said with a nervous laugh, peering out at the ring of soldiers who were still pointing spears at her, their expressions varying from furious to shocked to utterly confused. It was as Mr. Pissed-Looking Guard-Dude started to move his spear in her direction that Cori realized that random comments like hers probably weren't socially accepted in wherever the heck she was.

"Our guards will not harm you, unless you do prove to be an assassin." At the emperor's reassuring (and still uninsulted) statement, Cori found herself feeling less worried. Or it might have been the way that Mr. Pissed-Looking Guard-Dude rather innocently pointed his spear towards the ground rather than in the general direction of her neck that alleviated some of her immediate causes for stress.

However, she still carefully crawled out from under the palanquin on the _opposite_ side of the angry guard, just to be safe. Feeling rather awkward, she knelt in the middle of the street, not sure of what sort of respectful stuff she was supposed to do. Everybody was silent, apparently waiting for the dusty, slightly battered young woman in odd clothing to start talking. Cori self-consciously tucked her hair behind her ears. She had never really liked talking in front of large groups of people, and it didn't help that most of this particular large group of people was pointing scary-looking sharp objects in her direction.

"Well… uh… Hi. I'm Corina Miller." Cori waved slightly in the general direction of the emperor, who was still mostly hidden by the curtains on his palanquin. All she could see of him was part of a leg and one ridiculous-looking shoe. Seriously, the thing was insane! It was the most ornately embroidered footwear she had ever seen, and the wide, upturned toe made it looks like a reject from the local flipper factory.

"So… um… Explanation time!" Cori tried to distract herself before she blurted out something about the emperor's odd choice of footwear. Her life was already in danger; there was no sense in pissing people off even more than she already had. "Hopefully this'll be like, semi-coherent-_ish_, but that might be kinda hard, 'cuz I'm not exactly that uber-clear on the detaily shiz myself, so, uh, here goes." Deciding that her rambling disclaimer really wasn't helping with coherent-ness at all, she launched into her story. "I was in my world, just sorta minding my own business, being spazzy with my friends and doing stuffness like that and then this friggin' book just, like, randomly kidnappified me for no apparent reason with this big flashy reddish light-thing and dumped me in the middle of a street. Then these super-icky guys tried to rape me or somethin', so I kinda whacked 'em with my frying-pan and ran, but then I somehow _really_ wasn't paying attention to where I was going and I collided with this parade-thing and… yeah. That's how I ended up under the palanquin." She ended with her best cheesy-innocent 'look how harmless I am' grin, hoping that the emperor believed her enough that she wasn't about to get her head chopped off. Getting killed _really_ didn't sound like a fun thing to do.

"You come from another world?" The emperor's surprised-sounding question made Cori realize how strange her explanation probably sounded.

_ Great. Now everybody probably just thinks I'm a total lunatic. Not that they're that far off-base, but still…_

She nodded earnestly, despite her doubts. "Yep. That's right. Just don't ask how I got here, 'cuz I seriously don't know." But the emperor apparently wasn't listening, since he was already regally giving orders to Mr. Pissed-Looking Guard-Dude.

"Have Corina escorted to the palace. There are some matters which We wish to discuss with her."

Cori gulped. _'Matters we wish to discuss'?! That sounds serious! _she thought nervously, wondering what she had done to get a meeting with the emperor. _And what the flip am I doing having a meeting with an _emperor_, anyways? I'm a twenty-first century American high school student!_

Mr. Pissed-Looking Guard-Dude, who seemed to be a captain of some sort, quickly gave orders to a group of less apoplectic-looking men. Then, at a command from the emperor, the procession moved on, leaving Cori with the six soldiers that the captain had given orders to, who were _still_ pointing spears at her.

"So… Which way to the palace?" she asked in as cheerful of a tone as she could manage, attempting to smile at the stern-faced guards.

* * *

**A/N: There, hopefully that was a little more exciting than the first chapter.**

**And before anybody asks any strange questions, the frying pan thing is a nod to TCJ's very early origins as a semi-crack sort of story. It was fun to write, so I kept it.  
**


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note: Hello everybody! Pie here with another chapter of This Crazy Journey, brought to you by way too much oatmeal chocolate chip cookie dough. So... yeah. Enjoy the slightly crazy chapter. **

**Disclaimer: Still _don't_ own Fushigi Yuugi, still _do_ own Corina and the other OCs**

* * *

This Crazy Journey: Chapter 3

Corina breathed a sigh of relief as the guards finally halted outside of a door that wasn't nearly as ornate as she would expect to see in a palace. In fact, as she thanked the guard who had opened to door for her, walked in to the modest-sized, plainly furnished room, and gratefully flopped down on the couch, she suspected that she had been given a room in the servants' area of the palace. Not that she particularly minded. The simple room was actually somewhat comforting. If she ignored the total lack of anything even vaguely resembling modern technology, she could just pretend she was in an extremely weird hotel room somewhere. With a bunch of guys in armor watching her closely.

_ Well, this is awkward._

She stared up at the wood ceiling, trying to avoid the guards' intense stares. A moment later, the seat of her pants started vibrating. She leapt to her feet with a rather loud squeak.

"Holy frick! My butt's vibrating! Why the fudge is my butt vibrating?!" she yelped, about to start running around the room in circles. Then she remembered something and froze, blushing. "Oh. Yeah. Phone in pocket on vibrate." She started to pull the device out of her pocket. "Wait. My phone works here?!? Sweet!" Cori had just started do a victory dance around the room (with the guards watching her in a thoroughly freaked-out manner) when her phone, which she had forgotten to answer in her joy, vibrated again. Excitedly, she fumbled to pull the phone out of her pocket, not even bothering to check the caller I.D. as she flipped the device open and held it to her ear. "Hello?"

"Squishy!" Kamila's extremely familiar, accented voice squealed, loudly enough that Cori winced and held the phone a few inches away from her ear.

"Meewa!" She shrieked just as loudly, both out of genuine happiness and a desire for revenge, beginning to bounce in place. Maybe being in this world wouldn't be so completely freaky if she could still talk to her friends!

"Squishy, it _is_ you! I'll put you on speaker!" After her cousin's excited statement, the now-grinning Cori heard some staticy noises, followed by the slightly more distant voice of the other girl yelling. "Bagel! Fluzzy! It worked!"

"Hi!" Cori semi-yelled into the phone, hoping that the other two could hear her.

"Squishy!" For the second time in the past minute, Cori was partially deafened by two voices squealing her name, followed by Leslie's slightly less ear-piercing "Where the hell are you?!"

"Friggin' _ancient_ _China_, or someplace like that!"

"Whaaat?" All three girls on the other end chorused.

"Ancient China! That stupidful book kidnappified me!"

"Really? I thought you had just suddenly went to the bathroom when that thing started glowing." Leslie said sarcastically. Cori rolled her eyes, wishing that she was there to give her friend a smack on the back of the head, her usual response to Bagel's occasional unnecessary sarcasm.

_ Thwack!_

Much to her surprise, she heard the unmistakable, familiar sound of the palm of somebody's hand colliding with the back of another somebody's head. It was a lighter tap than Cori herself would have delivered, but still…

"Ow! Meewa! What'd you do that for?"

"Squishy wanted me to." Meewa replied.

"How'd you know--? Oh. Psychic cousin powers. Yeah." Corina and Kamila's 'psychic cousin powers' had been an inside joke among the four since they were in middle school together.

"Wow! You guys really, like, talk psychically?" Harriet's friends all knew that Fluzzy wouldn't be Fluzzy without her clueless moments.

"Yes. Of course." It was Cori's turn to be sarcastic, and there was nobody around to smack _her._ "We just send each other mental message-things, like 'Fwackify Bagel now!' And speaking of fwackifying things, I got to whack peeps with a frying pan, which was seriously mega-awesomeful!" Talking to her friends always made Cori feel more optimistic, even when she was stuck in weird other worlds. Even almost getting raped suddenly seemed like a source of entertainment.

"Seriously?" Harriet asked. "You whacked people with a frying pan?"

"Damn! And you've always been a relatively peaceful one! Well, except for the fwacking." Leslie sounded impressed.

"Well, they were trying to rape me, so what else _could_ I do? Cori's overly innocent question was met by giggles.

"Ever think about maybe kicking them in the balls and running like hell?" Les asked.

"I did that too! But frying panning them was funner!"

"Wow, Squishy. You're probably the only person I know who would worry about _fun_ with a bunch of guys trying to rape you." Cori could almost picture her blonde friend slowly shaking her head. "You're okay, right?"

"Well, it was either that or totally flip out, and flipping out'd _really_ be a not-good plan-ish thing." She said defensively, still smiling broadly. "And I'm totally fine. Well, my legs are gonna be _majorly_ pissed tomorrow, and I'm gonna have some prettyful bruise-y things. But… yeah. No big harm done. Beats being raped, anyways" The guards, by the way, were simply staring at the girl blankly, having decided that she was completely insane.

"Wait… how'd you do all that stuff already? It's only been about two minutes since that book ate you." Kami asked, sounding confused.

Cori froze for a moment. "Whoa! Only two minutes? Really!?" She didn't even wait for her friends' reply before she squealed joyfully and started actually bouncing in circles around the room, her official happy dance. "Yes! I'm probably not gonna miss my horse show! And my parents aren't gonna be flipping out! That's so spifftastically amazing! Now I just hafta find a way to get home sorta quickly-ish, and everything will be fantabulous again!"

While Corina was celebrating, the door swung open and a messenger walked into the room, staring at the bouncing girl in shock. He didn't need to notice her odd, tightly-fitting clothes or the fact that her dark hair barely reached her chin to realize that the girl he was looking at was from another world. Her odd behavior spoke for itself.

"Excuse me? Miss?" He asked hesitantly, unsure of how to treat the otherworldly young woman.

Cori froze for the second time in the last two minutes, realizing that somebody was now talking to her. Of course, there wasn't really anybody else the person could be talking to, seeing as she was the only female in the room and calling any of the guards "miss" didn't seem like a particularly good thing to do.

"Yeah?" she asked casually, pretending to have forgotten that she had just been bouncing around the room like a sugar-high lunatic.

"I'm supposed to take you to His Majesty now." The boy explained, speaking slowly and clearly to be sure that the mildly insane dark-haired girl had understood.

"Oh. Okay." Cori sighed at the thought of another long walk, then quickly addressed her friends again. "Well, I gotta go see the emperor now, so I'll talk to y'all later, 'kay?"

Ignoring her friends' confused half-shouting, Corina flipped her phone closed, and started to follow the messenger out the door, wincing at a slight twinge from her legs. Apparently they weren't particularly happy about her earlier sprint and the rather long walk to the palace and had decided that it was a great time to start protesting. The random sore places from her fight with the thugs weren't helping at all, either. The slight amount of pain reminded Cori that, as entirely surreal as everything seemed, it wasn't all just a dream. Anyways, her dreams didn't generally make so much sense.

_ Ow. When do I get to go home? I want Advil and a shower._ Cori thought rather grumpily as she followed the messenger, still surrounded by guards, who were _still_ pointing spears at her like she was a dangerous criminal who might go psychotic-mass-murderer on them at any second. Feeling an oncoming sensation of despair that she assumed had something to do with homesickness, she forced herself to think about her more immediate problems. Like how the frick she, ordinary, insignificant Cori, who had never even met the _mayor_ of her average-sized hometown was ever going to talk to the emperor without making some random etiquette mistake that would probably make everybody majorly pissed. And then they'd probably execute her.

_ Wonderful. This is _really_ helping me relax. Okay, let's think about something _else_, like…_

"Ho-ly _snap_." Cori said in awe, jaw dropping as the group passed through a door into a part of the palace that actually looked like, well… a palace. Gold, gems, tapestries, and all.

"This is so friggin' spifferiffic!" she exclaimed, not really realizing that she was thinking out loud as she stared at the elaborate decorations and ornately carved walls and ceilings with wide, awestruck eyes. She had always thought that the pictures of ancient palaces and things were incredible, but they didn't come anywhere close to the sheer awesomeness of the real thing.

_ Ha! This is awesome! I'm actually in a real palace! To bad the guards'd probably, like, spaz out if I started taking pictures!_

Noticing a passing important-looking person staring at her oddly as he hurried by, Cori casually waved at him, just to show that she wasn't about to jump forward and eat him. The old man's eyes widened in surprise (What was this girl _doing_, acting so relaxed when she was surrounded by guards?!) and he practically dropped the armful of scrolls that he was carrying. A corner of Cori's mouth quirked upwards in a small, mischievous smile. Maybe this world _would_ be kind of fun after all!

Another official walked by, and she waved to him enthusiastically. This time, his expression was so ridiculously surprised that Cori giggled slightly. As the next person (a servant of some sort) bustled by, Cori added a casual " 'Sup?" to her wave. The servant's response caused her to burst out laughing, her usual impish smile returning. That smile faded slightly, however, when one of the guards prodded her in the back.

"Ow!" she squeaked, in surprise rather than actual pain, turning to face the source of the poke with a reproachful glare. Did _everybody_ in this crazy place want to invade her bubble?

"What're you doing, girl?" the guard behind her growled, looking threatening.

Cori shrugged. "Having fun." She replied innocently. "It's not hurting anybody, _and_ it keeps me from totally flipping out." She added a hint of puppy-eyes to her already angelic expression, hoping that the guard would let her keep entertaining herself. Noticing him hesitate, the girl increased her puppy eyes even more, trying to look as cute and harmless as she possibly could.

"Well… Alright, I guess you can keep doing it." The guard said, apparently unable to resist the cuteness. In truth, he thought that the weird-looking girl wasn't even close to mentally stable, so he didn't want to risk doing anything that might set her off.

Cori's grin widened, her expression regaining its usual mischief. "Yay! Thanks! You rock!" _Ha! The power of the puppy-eyes prevails again!_ As she was celebrating, a maid walked by, already looking at them oddly.

"Hi! Nice weather today, huh?" Cori called cheerfully, saying the first thing that popped into her head. The maid literally dropped the armful of sheets that she was carrying, even though she actually responded with a tentative "Y-yes. It's very sunny for this time of year" as the strangely dressed girl continued down the hall.

The messenger and the guards had, by this point, all come to an unspoken agreement that the girl they were bringing to meet the emperor wasn't entirely sane. Even worse, her greetings became weirder and even more enthusiastic as they moved through the palace, disrupting the usual solemn atmosphere. Still, she was rather amusing, in an extremely strange way.

When they finally halted in front of a pair of super-ornate double doors, Cori greeted the serious-looking guards with an enthusiastic wave and an equally cheerful "Hey! How's guarding goin' today?", going into a renewed fit of giggles at their confused expressions. By that point, she had entirely forgotten about the reason why she was being led through the incredibly uber-spiffy and entertaining palace, and was too busy finding more people to "greet" to notice the messenger slipping through the doors.

Instead, in a moment of extreme spazziness, Cori chose a random really important-looking old man and yelled "What's goin' on, yo?!" in an incredibly (intentionally) fake "gangsta" voice. The resulting startled expressions of everybody in the general vicinity caused Cori to seemingly lose her last tenuous hold on sanity and collapse against the door behind her, laughing so loudly that at least half the palace probably could have heard her, had they been listening hard enough.

Unfortunately for the laughing girl, the messenger had just been about to open the door that she was leaning against. With a rather startled squeak, she half-stumbled, half fell through the door, colliding with the messenger, who was in the middle of a low bow to somebody on the other end of the room. The two fell over in a heap, the collapse punctuated by Cori's involuntary cry of "Shit! Ow! Sorry!" , although part of her brain was yelling "Whoo! Dramatic entrance, Cori-style! Yeah!". The slightly more reasonable, sane part of Cori's brain promptly mentally whacked the part that was doing the yelling with a mental frying pan, making it shut up.

"_So_ sorry "bout that! I totally didn't realize the door was right there!" Cori apologized hastily, as she rolled off of the red-faced messenger, who promptly stood, bowed again, and practically ran out of the room.

_ Ow. Frack. Now I gotta get up again._ She grimaced; wishing that she could get some Advil or something for her various aches, pains, and bruises.

Then, a noise from the other end of the room caused Cori look up and immediately start blushing as she saw the man who sat behind a large, ornately carved desk.

_ Gack! He's hot!_ Cori's gaze quickly dropped from the emperor (there was nobody else the guy _could_ be) 's golden eyes back to the carpeted floor, although an image of his regally elegant features seemed to be permanently imprinted in her brain.

_ Oh snap! Why'd the emperor have to be friggin' gorgeous, too? Now I'm really not gonna be able to talk to him! Or why couldn't Fluzzy have been kidnapped instead of me? She'd actually enjoy this!_ Cori continued to blush as she got to her feet, trying to convince herself to not freak out. _Come on! It's not like you'd have a chance with him anyways, so why worry about embarrassing yourself? Just mentally replace that ittle takeout-box hat with a lime green 'fro and you'll be fine. It worked when you had that cute guy as your lab partner in bio!_

"Um… Hi?" She said with a tentative wave, rapidly forming her ridiculous emperor-with-an-afro mental image and making a quick decision to not bother with the whole 'acting formal' thing. She'd probably just screw it up and humiliate herself even more. Anyways, being all formal and stuff just wasn't her thing.

"You may be seated." The emperor commanded regally. Cori, deciding that the best thing to do would be to listen, started to limp awkwardly across the room. _Okay, Squishy. Lime green afro. Lime green afro. Maybe add some hot pink streaks, and a pair of those glasses-and-false-moustache things… Oh yeah! Now _that_'s better._

"So… uh… I'm not gonna be, like, executified or anything, right?" She asked as she flopped into the chair across from the emperor, too busy trying not to giggle at her mental image of him to bother with being particularly nervous, which she knew was probably the proper emotion in her current situation.

She was pretty sure that she saw a slight look of shock flit across his face. "We shall not harm you, -- "

Not realizing that the emperor might not be done with his reassuring statement yet, Cori let out a loud sigh of relief. "Oh _good_, 'cuz being all deadful and shiz would've _really_ sucked."

"However," the gorgeous man continued, reaching across the table to grab Corina's hand. Even her mentally 'decorated' picture of him couldn't prevent a blush from spreading across her cheeks as his intense gaze met her confused, startled stare. "We do have one request. Will you save Our empire, Priestess of Suzaku?"

* * *

**A/N: Semi-cliffie! Yay! And I really feel like I owe Hotohori an apology for Cori's mental images of him. Free imaginary baked goods for anybody who wants to draw that mental image, by the way. (Sorry. I'm currently not in the sanest of moods).**

**As far as updates go, I'll try to have a new chapter up every 1-2 weeks.**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Hi everybody! I'm so, so, so sorry about the really delayed update. And this chapter is kinda pathetically short, too. Sorry! I'm going to be really busy until about June 21, but I'll hopefully have more regular/longer updates after then. Okay, now that my apology is over, I can start celebrating the fact that I actually have reviews! Thank you so much, wonderful reviewer-people! I was starting to wonder if anybody actually liked TCJ. And, in response to some of your questions; yes, I am currently planning on making this a Cori/Hotohori fic. Hopefully it'll work out.**

**Disclaimer: I _still_ don't own Fushigi Yuugi and/or any other recognizable stuff. So don't sue me. Please.**

* * *

**  
**

The silence following the emperor's question could have either been described as "dramatic" or "extremely stunned", depending on your perspective. Corina stared at the emperor in disbelief, eyes wide, mouth hanging open slightly. Eventually, she was able to organize all of her incoherent, jumbled thoughts into one concise, coherent question.

"Whaaaaat?!?!" Cori squeaked, her voice at least an octave or two higher than it usually was, practically falling out of her chair in shock. Then, she burst out laughing, her usual response to random, insane, 'you've gotta be kidding' requests. "Me? Save the empire?" she said through her laughter. "That's a good one." Then, as she watched the emperor's solemn face, her giggles faded. "Wait… You were _serious_?"

"Allow Us to explain. In Our empire, there is a legend that tells of the Priestess of Suzaku, a young woman from another world. She will gain the power of Suzaku and save Konan from destruction."

Although Cori was beginning to recover from her initial shock, her expression grew increasingly more wide-eyed and deer-in-the-headlights-ish as the emperor explained. When he had finished, it took most of the girl's mental capacity to form a coherent question and not just stare at him blankly.

"So Konan is this place and Suzaku's, like, the country's guardian-thingy?"

He nodded "Correct."

"And you think _I'm_ supposed to summonify Suzaku?"

"We _know_ that you are the one."

Cori had to bite her lip for a second so she didn't go into another fit of giggles. "Okay, look. You've _definitely_ got the wrong girl or somethin', 'cuz I'm just a normal-ish teenager, not some legendary chick who can summon a god and save the empire and do all that important-sounding shiz!" She attempted to explain, voice still higher-pitched than usual. At least the desire to crack up wasn't quite as strong any more. Unfortunately, it was slowly being replaced by an urge to have a complete panic attack. This was insane! There was no way she could ever_ try_ to save an entire country without failing miserably! Plus, saving the empire didn't exactly sound like a quick thing to do, and she wanted to get home, not hang out in some alternate-universe version of China with a bunch of random strangers!

"Suzaku has the power to grant anything you may desire." He added, as if that might convince her.

"Seriously? Anything?" _That_ caused Cori to perk up for a moment. "So I could, like wish to go home again! That'd be fanta-" She paused, her excitement vanishing as her brain finally began to kick back into action. "Wait a sec. How'll wish-grantingness help if I can't summon 'im in the first place?"

"You would not have been chosen by Suzaku if he did not believe that you would succeed." The emperor spoke with absolute certainty.

"But what if there was some sort of mistake-ish thing?" Cori insisted. There was no way any god in their right mind would have chosen _her_ as his priestess! She mentally winced as the emperor looked slightly offended.

_ Oopsies. Kinda just insulted his country's guardian-thing, didn't I?_

"Suzaku would not make that grave of an error." He seemed to get about fifty times more regal as he spoke that sentence, causing Cori to remember that she was arguing with the emperor. Not that she cared all that much. After all, he _had_ made an insanely ridiculous request.

"Maybe not." She shrugged "But it was just, like, totally randomful that _I_ was the one that got poofed to this place. If Bagel or Fluzzy or Meewa'd happened to pick up that bookish thing, then they'd be the ones sitting here and I'd still be at Bagel's place pigging out on chocolate and cheez-its." Then, after a moment's pause, she added "Okay, maybe I wouldn't just be sitting around and eating cheez-its if one of my bestest friends got kidnappified by a friggin' book, but… yeah. Same basic idea. _I_ wouldn't be here, and you'd be asking some other girl to save the empire. Which would be totally, completely, and utterly fantabulousful for me, 'cuz I just really, _really _want to go home." Cori's voice finally broke on her last word, the façade of calmness that she had subconsciously created for herself rapidly crumbling. Slowly, her shoulders slumped and she buried her face in her hands, biting her lower lip in an effort to keep herself from bursting into tears. She hated crying in front of people, especially random gorgeous strangers.

What Cori hadn't noticed was the fact that the emperor had gracefully stood and walked over to her side. Therefore, she totally wasn't expecting him to try to comfortingly wrap an arm around her shoulders. Startled by the sudden contact, she squeaked, flinching sideways. Unfortunately, she had miscalculated exactly how close she was to the edge of the chair and, with an unexpected drop, landed on the floor with a soft thud and a startled yip.

_ Whoa! How'd I end up—oh wow. I fell off the chair. Graceful, graceful me. _She started to giggle, despite the fact that her face was probably the same shade of crimson as the emperor's robe. The situation was so ridiculous that she couldn't help laughing- her sitting on the ground, looking up at the emperor, who was staring back at her with surprise and concern.

"Are you all right?" he asked, the situation apparently startling him out of his usual, more formal, speech pattern.

Cori shrugged. "I might have a few new bruise-y things, but I'll live." Taking the emperor's offered hand, she allowed him to help her to her feet, wincing as her legs twinged slightly.

"Our apologies. We had no intention of startling you." Cori wished the emperor hadn't switched back to the whole "imperial We" thing. It made her _seriously_ want to start talking in third person, just to share the annoyingness. Anyways, it was a lot more relaxing to talk to somebody who actually talked like a normal, single person.

"It's okay. One of my best friends makes me do that all the time, 'cept she actually does it intentionally." Her brief, bright smile faded as she mentioned her friends.

_ Will I ever see them again? What'll they tell Mom and Dad if I can't get back? And poor Snickers! Nobody can explain anything to him, so he'll just think I abandoned him! Dangit, I miss my pony already. _

"Perhaps we should continue our discussion once you have rested. I will show you to your room." As Cori looked back up at the emperor with the best smile she could manage (which actually managed to not feel _too_ horribly fake), she was surprised to see actual compassion in his golden eyes. It felt good to know that he wasn't just being nice to her to be polite.

"That'd be fantabulous." Suddenly, her smile felt a little less false as she awkwardly took the emperor's offered arm, silently thanking the (irritating) swing dance unit in P.E. for the fact that she actually kind of knew what she was supposed to do. As they walked out of the room through a smaller door next to the desk, Cori found herself adding a giant lavender bow to her mental image of him, just to distract herself from the fact that she had just been dragged into a book, asked to save a country, and walking next to an _extremely_ good-looking guy who also happened to be the emperor of the country she had just been asked to save. Dang! That distraction definitely wasn't working!

_ Okay Cori, How 'bout you…admire the architecture. That'd be a good distraction-thing! _Luckily, it was extremely easy to stare at the palace in awe as they walked down the hall, since the emperor seemed to be lost in thought. Soon, Cori was busy debating the pros and cons of trying to freak out all of the servants that were staring at her as they bowed to the emperor. Fortunately for everybody in the general vicinity, the girl's considerable supply of energy was finally running low, so she highly doubted she could muster enough spazziness for true, high-quality insanity.

She was just wondering precisely how ginormous the palace was when they halted in front of a door.

"Here is your room. I hope it is suitable for you." The emperor said, opening the door as he spoke.

All Cori could do was stare at her room in openmouthed shock, trying to take everything in. Altogether, the room was probably about two-thirds the size of her entire house (which wasn't actually that incredibly huge, since her house was incredibly puny), the whole space tastefully decorated with silk, carvings, and a few statues. Flashes of gold winked from many locations, including a statue in a corner that looked incredibly similar to the "mutant sparkly seagull" that had dive-bombed her head at school.

Eyes still wide, the girl turned back to the emperor. "This is my _room_? Seriously?"

He responded with a dignified nod, smiling at her awed expression.

"Wow." Suddenly, Cori was feeling just the teensiest bit guilty about not being able to be the priestess. "This is definitely the spiffiest-looking place I've ever slept in." _and I totally did nothing to deserve it,_ she added silently.

"It is the least I could do for the one who is destined to save my empire." Hearing the emperor's confident words only made Cori feel worse. How could she explain that she was totally incapable of doing anything helpful when she was faced with that gentle smile?

_ Gack! Bad Cori! Think lime green afro! Come on!_

Her mental image doing its job as a distraction yet again, Cori sighed wearily. "Okay. I _really_ should make some sort of comeback-ish thing 'bout how there's no way in _heck_ I could successfully try to save the empire, but it's been an uber-long and kinda stressful day, so goodnight, um…"

_ Crap! Why'm I blanking on the emperor-title-thing? I've heard it, like, fifty bazillion times today! Okay, think, think, think._

"You may call me Hotohori." The emperor said, seeming to sense Cori's dilemma.

"Okay. Awesome." Cori smiled again, feeling relieved. "Nice to meet you Hotohori." She held out her hand, expecting a handshake.

Much to her surprise, Hotohori took her hand and gently kissed the back of it. "I am glad to have met you as well, Corina. Good night." With one last smile at the flustered, blushing young woman, he turned and walked gracefully down the hall.

After watching him leave, Cori made her way into her room and flopped down on the couch, barely missing landing on top of her backpack and slightly dented frying pan, absentmindedly rubbing the place where the emperor's lips had touched her hand.

* * *

**A/N: Okay. I don't really have anything to say here, other than that I never knew that spellcheck would recognize "teensiest" as a word. I thought it was some sort of weird made-up slang-thing. Oh, and I might be adding another segment on to this chapter later on. I still can't quite decide if I want it with this chapter or the next one.**

** Pie  
**


End file.
